Carrier tape is used to transport components (e.g., electrical components such as resistors, capacitors, or integrated circuits) from a component manufacturer to a different manufacturer that assembles the components carried within the carrier tape into a complete product. The carrier tape includes a number of pockets formed within the carrier tape at regular intervals and having a geometry that is compatible with the components to be carried. The pockets are typically defined by a number of wall portions extending from a bottom portion of the pocket to a top portion of the carrier tape. In this way, the components being carried by the carrier tape rest within the defined pockets.
Typically, a carrier tape is manufactured in a first manufacturing location, wound on a reel and transported to the supplier of the components it is intended to transport. The component supplier unwinds the carrier tape from the reel, fills the pockets along the carrier tape with components, adheres a removable cover strip along the carrier tape over the component filled pockets, winds the component filled carrier tape with the attached cover strip onto a reel, and sends it to the user who feeds it from the reel onto the assembly equipment which removes the components.
A common problem associated with carrier tapes wound onto reels in this manner is the tendency for pockets on a first wrap of the carrier tape to settle or nest into the pockets of an adjacently wrapped portion of the carrier tape. The nesting of one pocket into another pocket causes the wall portions of the pockets to frictionally engage one another such that a large force is then required to unwind the carrier tape. This may result in the deforming of the carrier tape such that the automated equipment is no longer able to remove components from the carrier tape.